Exploring Acacia Marable’s Colorful Narrative at Night Gallery
By Darren Smith, Arts Reporter
May 22, 2026
In the vibrant heart of Los Angeles’ downtown art scene, Night Gallery continues to champion emerging and mid-career voices with its latest solo exhibition, Acacia Marable’s Mixed Feelings Color Pains. On view through May 23, 2026, the show marks a significant milestone for the Seattle-born, Los Angeles-based artist, presenting a compelling body of new oil paintings that blur the lines between abstraction, found-object sculpture, and deeply personal narrative.
Acacia Marable (b. 1988), who earned his BFA from the University of Washington and MFA from the University of California, Riverside, has built a practice rooted in repetition, material experimentation, and emotional complexity. Working across drawing, painting, and sculpture, Marable develops ideas through distinct series, often transforming everyday or discarded objects into carriers of psychological weight. In Mixed Feelings Color Pains, he elevates dartboards—iconic symbols of precision, chance, and competition—into painted canvases that pulse with color and tension.
Visitors entering the exhibition encounter dartboards reimagined as vibrant, textured surfaces. One striking work features a pristine, unpainted dartboard installed beside its painted counterpart, where Marable has layered oils in concentric rings of blues, lavenders, and deep indigos, transforming the functional game piece into a meditative color field. These pieces evoke the “mixed feelings” of the title—joy and melancholy, playfulness and pain—while nodding to broader themes of targeting, scoring, and emotional bullseyes in human relationships.
Marable’s masterful handling of oil paint shines through in both the precision of his color gradients and the gestural freedom in other compositions. The exhibition highlights his ability to infuse seemingly rigid structures with raw emotion, creating works that feel simultaneously controlled and chaotic. Critics have noted the show’s timely resonance in an era of emotional volatility, where personal pain and collective uncertainty collide. As one observer described the dartboard works, they capture “the sting of missed targets and the fleeting triumph of a perfect score.”
This presentation at Night Gallery builds on Marable’s recent momentum, including his 2025 solo trash flag at Human Resources Los Angeles and residencies such as BOFFO and Salmon Creek Farm. His work has appeared in group exhibitions exploring anti-Blackness and contemporary aesthetics, underscoring a practice that is as formally innovative as it is socially engaged. Explore the full exhibition on Night Gallery’s site.
The intimate scale of the show allows for close viewing that rewards prolonged attention. Marable’s repetition of motifs across the series creates a rhythmic dialogue between pieces, inviting viewers to consider how color can embody contradictory states—seductive yet uneasy, structured yet anarchic. His background in both fine art academia and self-published artist books like Penis Envy Vol. 1 adds layers of conceptual depth often hidden beneath the visual allure. View more of Marable’s practice on his official site.
Night Gallery, known for its edgy yet accessible programming, has once again positioned itself at the forefront of Los Angeles contemporary art with this exhibition. As the show enters its final days, it serves as a potent reminder of painting’s enduring power to process the complexities of contemporary life. See installation views and checklist at Contemporary Art Daily.
Marable’s Mixed Feelings Color Pains doesn’t offer easy resolutions but rather a space for viewers to sit with ambiguity. In doing so, it affirms art’s role as both mirror and balm for the human condition. Follow Acacia Marable on Instagram for studio insights.
Don’t miss this standout exhibition—visit Night Gallery before it closes on May 23. Secure your experience today and engage with one of the most exciting voices shaping the future of painting in Los Angeles. For gallery hours and location details, visit Night Gallery online.
